The Leftovers
Author: Tom Perrotta
AUDIOBOOK
Published: August 30, 2011
Dates Read: August 7-14, 2012
My Rating: 1 Star
Book Summary from Amazon:
What if your life was upended in an instant? What if your spouse or your child disappeared right in front of your eyes? Was it the Rapture or something even more difficult to explain? How would you rebuild your life in the wake of such a devastating event? These are the questions confronting the bewildered citizens of Mapleton, a formerly comfortable suburban community that lost over a hundred people in the Sudden Departure. Kevin Garvey, the new mayor, wants to move forward, to bring a sense of renewed hope and purpose to his traumatized neighbors, even as his own family disintegrates. His wife, Laurie, has left him to enlist in the Guilty Remnant, a homegrown cult whose members take a vow of silence but haunt the town’s streets as “living reminders” of God’s judgment. His son, Tom, is gone, too, dropping out of college to follow a crooked “prophet” who calls himself Holy Wayne. Only his teenaged daughter, Jill, remains, and she’s definitely not the sweet “A” student she used to be.
Through the prism of a single family, Perrotta illuminates a familiar America made strange by grief and apocalyptic anxiety. The Leftovers is a powerful and deeply moving book about regular people struggling to hold onto a belief in their futures.
My review in 2012:
Great premise, terrible execution! I heard that one of the people behind Lost is turning this book into a show for HBO, so that got my attention. I read what the book was about and thought it sounded GREAT! Well it is not. I was not interested in the characters at all or what was going on with them. They were not interesting at all! The only characters I was interested in was Tom and Christine. I REALLY hope it is changed A LOT when it becomes a tv show. I guess reading the premise of the book gave me high expectations and the book failed miserably.